ER Closure

How do you quit a soap? If we're talking the Imperial Leather, Dove or carbolic variety, then the answer's simple: quit bothering about personal hygiene. But if it's the TV brand, it's not that easy. They're this organic, living world in which we freely immerse ourselves, hoping to follow the trials, tribulations and triumphs of people for whom we're prepared to set aside, for example, 45 minutes per week, 22 weeks a year from Pilot to - presumably, if it ever gets to that stage - final curtain.

Shows like The West Wing help us out by having an effective set term built in: after Bartlett's maximum two terms, it would be difficult to imagine many continuing to watch after the cast being replaced wholesale. Now, on that one, I've yet to reach the end, but I know there is a last episode and I'm sure I'll feel an overall sense of satisfaction, not to say achievement, when I get there. But, as undoubtedly brilliant as The West Wing is, it will never quite compete with ER. Those White House bods have earned my respect, whereas the staff at Cook County General won my affections.

There have been so many characters, over the years, I've absolutely loved. Even the ones I hated - because ER always had a gift for showing us the human side of even the Weavers and the Romanos of its world. Yes, some of that love was of the romantic persuasion, but if a hospital is going to include the likes of Susan Lewis, Carol Hathaway, Jeannie Boulet, Lucy Knight, Abby Lockhart, Deb Chen and Elisabeth Corday on its staff then I - a sensitive soul who fell in love with Sarah Jane Smith at the tender age of seven - can scarcely be blamed for growing similarly fond of some of its medical professionals. And alongside that there was always the best-friend, buddy, uncle, mentor, nothing-remotely-gay-about-it-honest love for some of the male medicos - principally Carter, Pratt and, of course, Mark Green.

But the steady ebb and flow of characters is carefully managed so that, some little time before one of your favourites departs (whether as a result of marriage, the need to be with a new born niece or, quite frankly, a brutal stabbing) steps have usually been taken to introduce a new rising star with which to hook your interest and soften the blow. Like Abby with her alcoholism, there's no real ideal time to quit.

But it's that last fellow in that list, Mark, funnily enough, who provides me with an answer to my question: how do you quit a soap?

Because, while I've been faithfully following the latest season (is it really 14 now?), I've also been catching up on a rewatch of the first 8 seasons on DVD. That half-marathon, as it were, concluded yesterday with episode 21 of Season 8, On The Beach. I'm not going to say what happens in it - everyone probably knows - but it made me blub the first time and it managed to do the same without the slightest difficulty this second time around.

There was another episode after that, Lockdown, but that's a big season cliffhanger and at the end of On The Beach I arrived at a decision. Or a conclusion, you could say.

No more ER for me.

You could argue that, perhaps, it's one I should have arrived at on the first viewing. But I think you'd be wrong. I don't regret continuing to watch after that point: the show still had plenty of good - nay, superlative - drama to offer after that point. *But* it did begin to drop the ball and, particularly, mishandle certain characters in Season 10 - and that, to me, was more disappointing than a character's departure. And slowly but surely as the series rolled into its 13th and 14th seasons, I was getting a sense that one of us - either the show or me - was going through the motions. Watching the earlier shows on DVD while the new series was still unfolding finally brought the contrast home to me.

I'm watching the lives of these mostly new characters play out and I realise, as much as I still *like* some of them - Pratt, Neela, Abby - I find I don't really care about them. There's a warmth, a dynamism, a chemistry missing that, irrespective of the still-high standards the production maintains, gives me a sense of treading water. Which, when a thing used to be as good and thoroughly addictive as ER, is as close to sinking as you want it to get.

Now in the past, it's fair to say I have waxed, if not lyrical, then a fair bit about ER. Far less so than I've harped on about Doctor Who, but that's no reliable measure of where those shows place in my affections. On a purely personal note, I remember I began watching ER when my Dad was away on business the Wednesday night it started and my Mum invited me over for company and we looked for something to watch on the telly. And although my Dad was only away a couple of other Wednesdays after that, those midweek visits of mine became something of a ritual. And an entirely welcome one at that. I can't quite remember now how long that went on, but of course I continued watching in any case for all those characters I mentioned - and a few more besides. And it's only in the last two years - since, incidentally, they dropped the theme music, with its distinctive siren song opening - that I've wondered when I should think about giving up the habit.

My answer then: pick a character and follow the course of their life through to their departure. If I'd picked Susan at the start, my fanhood (is that a word?) would have lasted all of two and a half years. If I'd picked Carol or Doug, then I'd have stayed faithful for six. But the fact is, although it's easier to say in retrospect, I think if you had to pick a single character out of all of them, I'd have still opted for Mark Green. He was such an anchor to the whole team, in the midst of all the chaos. So, even though it's on a second viewing and even though I've actually watched considerably past that point, it's his departure - on DVD - that marks (ha) my own very fond farewell to the series at long, long last.

And, heck, with those discs snugly at home on their own shelf - eight seasons happened to fit *perfectly* - I can always go back and revisit any of the gang from Series 1 to 8 any time I like. And that's where all of my best medically trained friends can be found.

Apart from a couple of friends who completed their first aid course last week. Well done them.